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The economy might be slowing, but now is not the time to stop innovating and let your competitors gain the upper hand. KOSMAS SMYRNIOS and AMANDA GOME explain how you can foster a culture of innovation in your business.By Kosmas Smyrnios and Amanda Gome
Australia's bricks and mortar retailers have been doing it tough of late. But then, it is getting hard to remember a time when they weren't. But while news reports are filled with stories of companies such as Borders, Blockbuster and Premier Retail closing stores, many of Australia's online retailers are going from strength to st...
The owner of the Australian book selling chains Borders and Angus & Robertson has been placed in the hands of administrators, less than 24 hours after Borders in the US filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Ferrier Hodgson was appointed as the company’s administrator late on Thursday afternoon. Partner Steve Sherman is handling the matter. RedGroup Retail were contacted but a spokesperson declined to comment. The first creditor’s meeting will take place...
Zara's second Australian store is set to open in Melbourne this morning, ending months of speculation and anticipation for eager fans who are lining up in droves to attend the first showing of the boutique fashion retailers' newest location. However, some retail experts say the launch isn't necessarily as high-profile as other stores that attract a more wealthy demographic, such as Apple, and may not result in as much extra foot traffic due to the overall weak retail environment.
Web-savvy businesses have been obsessed with making sure their website is at the top of Google search pages for ages but during the past two years a new platform has been added to the mix – location marketing. In addition to websites businesses are now using a variety of apps and portals to reach out to customers who are literally walking right past them.
Don Grover is the chief executive of the franchise chain of book sellers Dymocks, which has emerged from the doldrums of this early decade with a new business model that embraces online strategies.   He talks to Amanda Gome about how he has changed the model and...
The collapse of REDGroup Retail, the owner of Borders Australia and Angus & Robertson, sent shockwaves through Australia’s retail and publishing world. While the episode has much to do with problems specific to the book sector – such as the rise of online booksellers like Amazon and Book Depository, the government’s decision last year not to drop its parallel import restrictions for books and growing eBook sales – there are important lessons for all entrepreneurs.
Online auction and retailing giant eBay says its top 2,000 sellers in Australia recorded revenue growth of 38% during 2010, with the most successful merchant turning over $12 million. The figures were revealed as part of the Government's online retail forum that took place in Sydney last Friday, where a number of online retailers and experts took part in discussions about the future of eCommerce and digital retailing. "I think this is an acknowledgement that online retailing is h...
Zara could establish up to 40 stores in Australia during the next few years, a retail consultant says, as the Spanish fashion retailer prepares to open in Brisbane. Brian Walker of The Retail Doctor Group estimates Zara’s stores in Sydney and Melbourne are likely to turn over about $45 million in their first year of operation, with the Sydney opening said to have been the second most successful in its parent company’s history. Walker says Zara is a “huge success story ...
All current and potential exporters should be aware that new Incoterms are expected to take effect in 2011. Incoterms is the abbreviation for "International Commercial Terms" and were introduced by the International Chamber of Commerce back in 1936 to provide people engaging in international trade a common set of trade terms that would be understood across the world. You would have all heard of FOB "Free on Board", probably the most used but also misused of the Incoterms. The cur...
The administrators of failed book retail company RedGroup Retail have announced it will shut 38 stores in the next few weeks as it seeks to stem the losses from the ailing group. The closures – 37 Angus & Robertson stores will shut across Australia, while one Borders store in New South Wales will close – will see more than 300 staff lose their jobs. Borders' remaining 200-strong workforce is now likely to face an anxious wait. While administrator Steve Sherman is...
First Zara, now TopShop – the international fashion juggernauts are entering Australia at a time some retailers have dubbed the most challenging in decades. But TopShop is not entering unchartered territory: Australia is one of its largest online markets. The Australian Financial Review reports that the British clothing group will lease a spot on the corner of George and Market Streets in Sydney's CBD. The site was formerly the home o...
The nine remaining Borders bookstores throughout Australia are set to close, costing 315 people their jobs, but the administrator of its collapsed parent says no decision has been made on the future of Angus & Robertson. A letter to Borders customers was sent this morning entitled: "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! ALL LOCATIONS CLOSING! – Everything on sale – Everything Must Go!" The book chain has offered up to 40% off the original prices of all stock but notes it is "bu...
Online retail giant Amazon has purchased British online seller The Book Depository for an undisclosed amount. Book Depository has become one of the most popular internet booksellers during the past few years due to the fact that it ships products free of charge worldwide. The purchase comes alongside movement in the local online bookselling market, with publishing group Pearson buying the online divisions of collapsed booksellers Borders and Angus & Robertson. Th...
Social networking giant Twitter has grown from an internet gimmick into a full-blown marketing tool. For SMEs, being able to spread your message and sell to millions of people with no cash required is an offer too good to refuse. Twitter may be known as a single website, but really operates as millions of public conversations between users all ...
Poor retail conditions, skyrocketing rents and claims that REDGroup Retail was poorly managed are some of the reasons booksellers, publishers and industry experts are giving for the company’s shock collapse. The claims come after administrator Ferrier Hodgson took control of REDGroup Retail yesterday.  The company has 169 Angus & Robertson stores, 61 of which are franchised and Borders has 26 stores, mostly in Victoria. The group employs about 2500 staff b...
Fresh from a holiday in Africa, Boost Juice founder Janine Allis says Australia is blessed if it can afford to get worked up over a carbon tax, but admits retailers are under pressure.    She says consumers are unsure about the economy and that’s why they’re not spending. High rents, high labour costs and the Government’s poo...
How can an iconic chain like Dick Smith Electronics, with $1.5 billion in revenue, 325 stores, 4,500 staff and one of the best brand names in Australian retail be worth just $20 million? That's the question that has left consumers and even some business experts scratching their heads. There might even be a few executives within Woolworths – who this time last year valued the business at ...
Selling goods and services over the internet means going into unfamiliar legal jurisdictions. Don’t be alarmed, but do be alert. Trading in a world without bordersThere are traps for young players in selling goods and services over the internet. Whether you have an eBay merchant store, a B2B portal or just a plain old website, you are trading in the jurisdiction where the customer is purchasing and receiving your goods and services.
Gold Coast businessman Craig Gore has emphatically denied accusations from the liquidator of collapsed investment firm he owned that the company was operating "something akin to a ponzi scheme". Secured Capital & Finance, owned by Gore and business associate John Atkinson, was placed in liquidation in June 2009, with investors owed about $2.6 million. A report by liquidator Steven Kugel of insolvency firm CRS Warner Kugel says that many creditors invested funds with SC&...
In another blow to the book industry, one of Australia and New Zealand's largest independent book distributors The Scribo Group is set to close, costing about 50 employees their jobs. The closure comes after an "exhaustive strategic review of the Scribo business over the last six months" in which a sale, downsizing or a closure were considered, says Craig Davison, managing director of Scribo-owner Gordon and Gotch Australia.
I read a nice article in The Economist last week entitled “The Magic of Diasporas”. And since I was in London going to an "Australian Business UK" function, it made me feel even more connected to my fellow Aussies. Diasporas are described by Wikipedia as “the movement, migration or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland”.   A...
The toll from the collapse of REDgroup Retail continues to grow, with administrators announcing the closure of 16 more Borders stores. But it's not just the staff, customers and suppliers of the book chain that have been caught up in the closures – 14 Gloria Jeans franchisees operating within the book stores are also affected. Gloria Jeans said this morning it is looking at legal action. It is also looking at "new locations along with preparing financial assistance pac...
Nerds lost their leader, a sexy Spaniard entered Australian retail, Qantas chose to ground its planes and banks and Gerry Harvey finally caught up with the rest of the world. Corporate Australia hasn’t disappointed this year. Yes, it’s time for SmartCompany’s annual awards for the greatest achievements and biggest brouhahas. If you think we've missed something, let us know in the comments below.
25. Ted Egan
In this era of cybercrime, security continues to be one of the biggest challenges for companies that transact online, particularly in the financial services sector. Australian internet security firm TrustDefender has established itself as a leader in this market, and has just been the recipient of a $16 million investment from listed technology company Nexbis, which wi...
The seemingly never-ending winter facing Australian retailers was interrupted very briefly last night to let in a bit of Spanish sun reflecting from the opening of the new Zara store in Melbourne. The opening of the store – which comes a few months after the highly successful opening of the chain's first Australian store in Sydney – shows that there is still some life in bricks and mortar retail, in the right circumstances. Of course, how much life is a very vexed question ri...
The Airport Economist hit the streets of Ho Chi Minh City recently and tried the Saigon taxi driver test. You can mention a plethora of international household names and have to really work through them in broken Vietnamese and broken English to get where you want to go on Saigon's busy streets. But there's one name every taxi drivers knows in Saigon: "Arrr, MITT", that is R.M.I.T. - The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University - which is making quite a splash since setting up in So...
The troubled US book chain Borders has sold its Australasian operations to A&R Whitcoulls in a deal worth $110 million.Earlier this year, A&R Whitcoulls abandoned its bid to buy 30 Borders bookstores in the region after failing to reach agreement on the makeup of the company's ownership. The deal involved cash and shares and would have given Borders a substantial stake in A&R Whitcoulls. A&R Whitcoulls, owned by the private equity firm Pacific Equity ...
Apple is set to spend more than $10 million on its first retail site in Brisbane’s CBD and British clothing operator Topshop is tipped to take over some vacated Borders sites for its Australian entry later this year. Topshop is rumoured to be interested in taking over Borders bookshop sites in Chapel Street and Chadstone shopping centre in Melbourne as well as setting up in the Chatswood shopping centre in Sydney. David Gordon, partner in charge of national retail advisory...
If there was ever a time for the franchisees of Angus & Robertson (A&R) to band together and make an offer to buy the business from the administrators of the franchise's failed parent REDgroup Retail, this is it. With reports emerging this week that the administrators are still desperately searching for a buyer for REDgroup Retail's Australian book business, which includes a handful of company-owned Borders and A&R stores, plus the A&R franchise network, franchisees have ...
Businesses should experiment with Facebook Places, lodge their business names and start using the service to act as an entry point into location-based marketing, SEO experts say. The comments come as Facebook announced yesterday its new Places feature has launched in Australia, with users now able to use the site's iPhone app to "check in" to a location and see where their other friends are located. The service is a response to the growth of location-based social network Foursqua...
If it wasn't already bleeding obvious, the internet, and the digital technology driving it, is now having a profound impact on all kinds of business. Local retailers are losing billions of dollars in sales to web-enabled offshore competitors. Manufacturers like Kodak are closing manufacturing plants that once rode profitably on the back of now obsolete film processing stock and equipment. Recently Sensis reported that its Yellow Pages print directories had s...
I am no LinkedIn expert. But I do use it. I post status updates, I join groups, I comment in discussions, and I check backgrounds of just about every person I am about to interview or even meet. I also get lots of requests to connect, and as a result have about 3,000 connections, so I suppose I could be described as an active 'LinkedIn'er'. Active enough to realise there are a few things LinkedIn users simply should never do! Firstly, let's get away from chasing numbers when...
The worsening swine flu pandemic has Australia's tourism sector worried, with experts concerned that any fall in visitor numbers could compound the damage done by the global financial crisis.   The outbreak continues to worsen, with the virus claiming the life of a 22-month old child in the United States as the World Health Organisation upgraded the severity level of the crisis.
Rob Clarke is the chairman of digital services minnow Hyro, which has just emerged from a hellish three years that saw the business hit by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, some poor acquisitions and the GFC. After cleaning the business up, Clarke has raised $3.4 million to pay off tax debts and is confident the business is ready to perform. Today h...
36. Grace Chu
Grace Chu of SEO firm First Click Marketing immediately hit the ground running when she started the company four years ago, acquiring a number of large clients within the first few months of operation. But Chu says the ignorance of search engine marketing among larger companies was a problem she found difficult t...
The Borders and Angus & Robertson websites, owned by collapsed book retailer REDgroup Retail, have been bought by publisher Pearson Australia Group. Pearson Australia Group said the acquisition is a vote of confidence in Australia's "vibrant" market and will likely see the Borders and A&R names live on online for some time. The acquisition gives Pearson Australia Group – part ...
The collapse of an iconic South Australian book retailer has highlighted the bleak nature of the bookselling market, which is propped up by a growing number of independent retailers, experts say. The collapse of the Mary Martin Bookshop in Adelaide comes 18 months after the country's two giants, Borders and Angus & Robertson, collapsed and shut their stores. Now, only tw...
REDgroup Retail has finally released the Kobo eReader device and eBooks platform, with the gadget to sell for $199 in Borders bookstores and online in an attempt to challenge the Amazon Kindle's grip on the market. But analysts question whether the gadget will actually achieve success in Australia, as the Apple iPad threatens to topple the dedicated eReader market with a more powerful offering. REDgroup, which operates the Borders and Angus & Robertson book chains, launched ...
Gloria Jeans franchisees trapped inside Borders book stores that are being closed by the administrators of RedGroup Retail have been told their stores will be shut down on May 31. A total of 14 Borders stores will finally close their doors on that date, as administrators from Ferrier Hodgson work to try and salvage a return for creditors from the wreckage of the collapsed RedGroup Retail. A total of 17 Borders stores have been closed since the appointment of administrators, along...
It's one of the largest, oldest and most successful online retailers in the world – and it might be coming to Australia. Steven Noble, senior analyst at Forrester Research, says there are rumours going around that Amazon is looking at operating a domestic website in Australia, in addition to a planned data centre Down Under. It is already the largest overseas site for booksales in Australia. "There is talk it is looking for a warehouse in western Sydney," Noble told Sm...
The global financial crisis has claimed another victim, with Anthill Magazine, aimed at investors and fast growth companies, set to go quarterly. Publisher James Tuckerman (right), who launched the magazine in 2003 after quitting corporate PR to combat the “snoringly dry” personality of the Australian business media, says that after months of soul searching the magazine will move from its current bi-monthly. It will also have a price increase from $7.95 to $9.95. ...
This article first appeared May 19, 2009. Why does South Australia need to export? For the same reasons as it is important for Australia to export. There are both macroeconomic reasons and microeconomic reasons. In macroeconomic terms, increased exports help us pay for our imports as our economy grows. Exports, also growth prospects for the state and for the nation, and creating export industries, helps assist the workers by providing high quality jobs with good car...
More than 650 retail store closures have been announced since the beginning of the year, and more than 1,600 workers left without jobs – the latest as part of Myer's announcement last week that it would shed 100 staff in order to stay competitive. The figures represent what is becoming one of the worst years for retail in recent history, as businesses struggle against higher costs and competitive pressures, including the growing presence of online companies. Since the begi...
As we head into a week where the US faces its debt crisis and Australia ponders the prospects of a severe non-mining downturn if the Reserve Bank raises interest rates, in the eye of the local storm is non-food retailing. Non-food retailing, which employs some 800,000 Australians, is in deep trouble. We are looking at the possibility of a big fall in the value of the billions invested in strip shopping centres and at extensive labour lay-offs. This is an enormous and fundamenta...
Franchisee-owned Collins Booksellers has snapped up a group of Angus & Robertson franchises as well as flagging more purchases and store openings in the next couple of months. Collins managing director Daniel Jordon says an initial group of stores will move across to his company immediately and Collins is continuing discussions with independent stores and administrators about further acquisitions. “The conversation is continuing,” Jordon says. The number...
Iconic book chain Borders has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States, outlining plans to close up to 200 stores and sack as many as 6000 staff. The chain will use bankruptcy protection to attempt to restructure operations, which have been sagging under the weight of $1.3 billion in debt and falling sales. “It has become increasingly clear that in light of the environment of curtailed customer spending, our ongoing discussions with publishers and ot...
The future of Angus & Robertson franchises remains in doubt, after administrator Ferrier Hodgson announced a further 42 stores would close, leaving just 19 company-owned stores alongside the franchise network. The A&R closures will cost 519 people their jobs, with 429 coming from stores and 90 from head office. The closures are expected to be completed within four weeks. Ferrier Hodgson expects talks on the sale of the 19 remaining A&R stores to be finished within a fo...
Uncertainty about the future economic environment and likely economic conditions for small business extends way beyond our national borders. Rating agency Moody's has issued a global warning that there are major risks associated with the debt and binge hangover that forms the basis of Tony Abbott's WHK endorsed mantra. In its Sovereign Monitor, Moody's states, "Genuinely adverse debt dynamics were only expected to materialise in 15 to 20 years. The crisis has 'fast forwarded' his...
The Angus & Robertson chain is all but dead after the administrator of REDGroup announced that 16 of the remaining 19 company-owned stores would close by the end of the month. Two stores have been sold and talks are continuing on the third. Most of the 47 remaining Angus & Robertson franchisees are tipped to go independent, with the balance expected to join another franchise group such as Collins or Dymocks. Dymocks bought one of the A&R company-owned stores, Car...